City introduces new flood prep website

Now that the sun has returned and the snow is starting to melt, thoughts may be turning to summer flooding.

The City recently held a press conference in order to outline flood mitigation measures being taken for Calgary from here on out since the 1-in-100 year flood that devastated the area last summer.

“One of the most frequent questions I get asked is ‘Is the city going to flood this year?’” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi. “And the answer of course is we don’t know.
We don’t know what will happen this spring, it is impossible to completely prevent any flooding situations.”

In order to be better prepared for potential flooding, the City has undertaken provisions such as stronger river sensors and adding more river cameras. Flood
tubes and more sand bags have been purchased to help protect “critical” infrastructure and other measures include gravel bar shaping to better
manage water flow and improvements to storm drainage systems.

While the City is working on flood mitigation measures, City officials also
said there’s a responsibility to the homeowner when it comes to flood season.

“Look at your own home figure out what mitigation might make sense in your own home and in particular, this is an easy one, make sure that you move any irreplaceable items from the lower levels of your home to the higher levels of your home, just do that now,” said Nenshi.